Having the Outflow of Life by being One with Christ in His Life-Releasing Death

As believers in Christ, we must always remember that our service to Him should be God’s flowing out to supply others with the divine life (see John 7:37-39); for this, we need to be one with Christ in His life-releasing death so that His life would flow through us.

Serving God is not something we do at particular appointed times, and in the rest of the time we “live our life”; serving God is actually enjoying God, experiencing God, letting God grow and move and work in our being, and allowing God to flow in us and through us to others at all times.

The Lord Jesus, the Servant of Jehovah, did not merely serve God at some particular times but His living was His serving, and He served God in all He did and said. Our service to God should have the goal of ministering life to others.

There are many people doing many good things, helping others, and trying to solve the world’s problems; we as believers in Christ are not called to do many outward things for God but to be one with God to minister life to others.

Christ has come as the Spirit of life into our spirit; now our spirit is life, and whenever we set our mind on our spirit, our mind becomes life and peace (Rom. 8:10, 6).

In our Christian daily living we need to contact the Lord, be joined to Him organically, abide in Him, and give Him the ground in us to fill us with His life, saturate us with His intentions and likes, and impart His inclination into us.

We need to learn to be one with Him by denying ourselves, losing our soul life, and taking up our cross to follow Him.

On the positive side, we need to exercise our spirit to touch the Lord, receive Him, contact Him, and enjoy Him; on the negative side, we need to be willing to be dealt with by the cross, terminated in our natural man, and broken in our outer man, so that the divine life within us may flow freely.

In order for life to be ministered though us, our outer man must be dealt with and broken; we need to cooperate with the Lord by praying over His word and by letting His word operate in us to divide the soul from the spirit, and we need to cooperate with the Lord’s breaking work in us so that the divine life in our spirit would flow out.

If we really want that the divine life would flow through us, we must be subdued in our soul and let our spirit dominate and rule every matter, and then the Lord’s life will be able to flow out. When we let Christ make His home in our hearts through faith, He within us will break through to flow out from us and reach others as life.

Having the Outflow of Life by being One with Christ in His Life-Releasing Death

When we receive the Lord Jesus as life, He comes into our spirit, our innermost part; as we contact Him daily, we are supplied with His divine life, we are nourished with His life, and His life can spread from our spirit into all the parts of our inner being.

However, in a very real sense the divine life of God is constrained, enveloped, limited, and hidden in our spirit; as we touch the Lord in our spirit from time to time, this life has a way to flow out little by little.

In order for God’s life to flow freely in us and through us, we need to be one with Christ in His life-releasing death, that is, we need to be identified with the smitten Christ, typified by the smitten rock (John 19:34; Exo. 17:6).

We can never participate in Christ’s sufferings for the accomplishing of redemption; only He is the One qualified to suffer and die for us to redeem us, but we can participate in the life-releasing aspect of Christ’s death.

In His death Christ was smitten for us by God’s righteous judgement, and out from Him flowed blood (for our redemption) and water (for our regeneration and life).

Today in the church life and in our Christian life we need to be identified with the smitten Christ, that is, be one with Him in His death, so that the divine life as the living water would flow out of us (John 7:38).

We need to know Christ, the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, so that we may be conformed to His death; when we are one with Christ in His life-releasing death, life can flow through us.

Our human life, our natural life, must be smitten so that the living water may flow out; we should not “smite ourselves” or try to “put ourselves to death” but we should simply be one with Christ and pursue Him, and He will give us the experiences we need in order for life to flow from within us.

If we are one with the smitten Christ, we will experience the crucifixion of our natural life, and then just as Christ’s divine life flowed out as living water through the smiting of His human life, so we will experience the flow of water of life through the smiting of our natural life (see 2 Cor. 4:10-12).

Life can flow only where there’s death; death operates in us, so that life would operate in others. The more we are identified with Christ in His death, the more the supply of life will be there; eventually, the death of Christ will operate in us to such an extent that there would be a flow of life, a river of water of life flowing (Rev. 22:1-2).

Serving God is flowing out God as life to others; flowing out God as life is ministering life, and we cannot minister life if we don’t have life, experience life, and allow the death of Christ to operate in our being. But if we are identified with the smitten Christ, what flows from us will be pure – there will be a pure flow of life, with the tree of life, and the rich supply of life.

When the water of life flows in us, we are richly supplied, and the whole church will receive the rich supply of life. How we need to have the flow of life! May we be those who are willing to pay the price of our natural life so that the living water may flow from within us!

Lord Jesus, please give us the experiences we need to be able to minister life. We want to be those out from whom life is flowing without any hindrance so that, whenever others contact us, the divine life would flow! We present ourselves to You, Lord, to be one with You. We want to be one with You in Your life-releasing death, being identified with the smitten Christ so that the divine life would flow in us and out of us! Lord, we treasure the sweet flow of life, and we are willing to lay down our soul life so that life may flow!

Being Aware of Satan’s Attack upon the Church by Death

On the one hand we need to be one with Christ in His life-releasing death so that life would flow freely in us and out of us for the building up of the church. On the other hand, if we would minister life to others, we need to be aware of Satan’s attack upon the church by death (Matt. 16:18; Rom. 5:17, 21).

From Eden onwards, God’s controversy with Satan has been on the issue of life and death (see Gen. 3:3-4; Rom. 5:12, 17, 21; 1 Cor. 15:22). All that is of God is characterized by life (even life that passes through death and comes out in resurrection in fulness), and all that is of Satan is characterized by death (he brings in death and wants to keep everyone in death).

Satan comes to us through sin, the flesh, the world, and the self, and we are all aware of these issues and can learn how to deal with them; however, Satan’s most subtle attack on the church and his final goal is death.

Life is in God, and death is from Satan; when we touch saints in the church and fellowship with them, do we touch life or do we receive death? God destroyed death through Christ, and now He has called the church to do the same; today the church is God’s vessel of life, called to reveal the risen life of Christ and to bring men to the knowledge of this life.

In order for us to spread God’s life on earth and minister life to others, we need to realize that Satan works to bring in death both in the world and in the church.

Satan’s plan is not only to lure and attract us away from Christ and into the world, cause us to sin, or keep us in the self or in the flesh, but also to bring in death into our being, in our family life, and in the church life.

We need to be aware of Satan’s attack of death and be those who enjoy God’s life, are filled with His life, and minister the death-overcoming life into others in the church life and wherever we are.

Lord Jesus, cause us to be aware of the attack upon the church by death. Lord, we choose You as life. We want to enjoy You as life, live because of You, and live by Your life. Fill us with life. Make us ministers of life. Remove any death from our being, from our family life, and from our church life. Lord, make us aware of Satan’s attack of death in the church, and make us persons of life who are filled with life and minister life to others!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by brother Ron Kangas for this week, and portions from Life-study of Exodus, pp. 527-528 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Service for the Building up of the Church (2016 Spring ITERO), week 8 / msg. 8, A Life-ministering Service. 
• All Bible verses are taken from, Holy Bible Recovery Version.
• Further reading the Satan’s attack upon the church by death: Collected Works of Watchman Nee, vol. 44, pp. 875-878.
  Hymns on this topic:
  # From my spirit within flows a fountain of life— / The Triune God flowing in me; / God the Father’s the source, Christ the Son is the course, / And the Spirit imparts life to me. / Lord, I treasure the sweet flow of life, / And my soul-life at last I lay down; / O Lord, deepen the pure flow of life; / At Your coming may life be my crown. (Hymns #1191)
  # When my heart’s wholly free, / Christ can flow through me… Hallelujah! / Life can flow, praise the Lord, life can flow! / From the fountain in my heart life can flow! (Hymns #1214)